


Immersed

by Melicious_Intent



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bathing/Washing, F/M, FYI: Elgara's about to turn 40, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I mean if you don't know why aging would be a significant topic with Solas then I dunno, If there's interest I'll add more "chapters" a.k.a. one-off scenes, Is it angst? Is it fluff? Who cares!, Lavellan talks about getting old and stuff, Not the same Lavellan from my other stories, On a Saturday - Freeform, Solavellan Fluff Friday, This was gonna be smut but I'm old and tired okay, Yay new Inquisitor!, solavellan hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 12:18:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12108558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melicious_Intent/pseuds/Melicious_Intent
Summary: Elgara Lavellan has an opulent bath prepared with such bells and whistles that would entice a well-off human woman of maturing age. Unexpectedly, this stirs up self-conscious feelings that weren't present before, the attitudes on aging in both human and elven cultures differing greatly - and not quite in favour of her particular age bracket, it seems.Curious about these "anti-aging" products, Solas parks himself on her bed in the Tower Room and loses himself in a book while Elgara soaks. Eventually, though, the whole idea behind this pursuit for eternal youth sparks a conversation between them regarding their relationship.





	Immersed

Sunlight pooled on the Tevinter rugs inside her palatial quarters, the silver pile trimming the edges of the pattern casting glittering reflections along the outer surface of the bath. All the steaming water within was soft, slippery… milky, even, and it wasn’t as terrible as she’d imagined it would be based on the instructions. 

This “melt and soak” that Madame Vivienne had procured on her behalf from Val Royeaux came highly recommended, promising the fountain of youth itself if the testimonies were to be believed. As Elgara Lavellan soaked and wondered if anything significant was meant to happen, she tried at least to lend the bath the benefit of the doubt. She focused within herself, stilling her spirit first, then all her subtle movements. Small particles of something gold swirled through the bath water with every breath she took that was deep enough to disturb the surface. 

Blinking several times while staring out the stained glass, the elf sighed heavily and gave up trying to relax. Perhaps it was best to take her bath as she had always done, rather than sitting perfectly still and waiting for some miracle to occur that would reverse several of the harder years. She lifted an arm to scratch her head, water sloshing as droplets fell over her long neck. Tired and disappointed, Elgara grabbed hold of the tie in her hair and pulled it loose, letting her charcoal locks fall heavy over her shoulders, long ends floating snakelike on the surface.

 _Another one?_  She slumped with dismay, pruned fingers curling around a dark lock which still held the curl from the bun she’d worn.  _No, wait_. More than one… Squinting, she nodded to herself as she counted, each new discovery drying her mouth further.

“Interesting. You do not  _sound_  like a woman enjoying herself.” His cadence graced her pointed ears from behind the open book propped against his chest, bringing her chin up to look in his direction. Solas shifted on the bed, moving his bent knee to the side to catch a glimpse of her and letting the pages fall wherever they may. He rubbed at his eyes roughly, as if he had been reading small print for hours unending. And perhaps he had, if the wrinkles on her fingertips were anything to go by. “Vivienne promised an experience like no other,” he shook his head in amusement. “Is it possible she was slightly overselling her gift?”

Inquisitor Lavellan huffed air from her nose in mild amusement, her narrow brown eyes drifting to the water’s gilded surface. “Familiar with the sounds of women enjoying themselves, are you?” she taunted dryly, the smirk fading from her lips. 

She wanted to find it all funny. She supposed the best thing to do was to look for the humor in all this, but…

 _"Elgara,”_ Solas uttered her name in perfect Elvish, erasing all traces of the humanisation of the word that so permeated her everyday life. It felt like ages since she’d listened to the trill in her name, the long  _ah_  that hung in the air at the tail end… And a homesick nostalgia hit her like the weight of the moon on her back. 

She didn’t hear him as he closed the book and rose from the bed in a dead silence, walking toward her in soundless, steady footwraps. “My Heart,” he said just above a whisper, hands joined at his back, “you look troubled. Would you prefer to be alone, presently?”

A dozen replies stuck to the lining of her throat, the elf swallowing hard to dislodge them. When at last she realised they would not come, she instead shook her head, glancing up to meet his piercing blue irises, which stared back at her with an abundance of warmth. 

Embarrassed of what had brought all this on, she crossed her arms over her obscured chest and slouched down, submerging her chin beneath the minuscule waves. “I’ll be fine. You can stay, if it pleases you.”

After a long moment, Solas took a step toward the bath and lowered himself to his knees, sitting on his heels while knitted sleeves were rolled to elbow-length. “Then I’ll stay,” his eyes smiled her way, a gentleness resting there for her to find. “For now…” He laid his forearms against the curvature of the copper rim and relaxed beside her, twirling a long finger just under the water’s edge to stir up the gold flecks alluringly. “Surely after a long soak in this, you’ll shimmer enough to live up to your name.”

Elgara managed to smirk at that. “It’s supposed to ‘restore natural radiance,’ according to the label… I don’t see what’s so ‘natural’ about it.  _Fenedhis_ , of course I’ll look like a polished statue if I’m caked in this junk.”

She was rewarded with a gentle laugh, his eyes trained on the perfumed water. “I suppose at least the fragrance is appealing,” he audibly shrugged. 

It did smell lovely, to be fair. A soft bouquet of dawn lotus filled her as she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Who would have thought that the Fallow Mire could produce such a pleasurable sensation? Perhaps the medicinal flower spoke of the beauty that horrid swamp once was, so long ago… 

 _Fitting,_ she chided herself, sinking just an inch deeper with a glower.

“I believe I know what might be troubling you,  _vhenan_ ,” his voice, low and knowing, beckoned her, “and despite your many complaints, it’s not the gold reflecting in your warm bath.”

Forcing herself to sit up again, Elgara frowned, long locks hanging over the crimson blood writing on her face. She ran her fingers through it, pushing it back and meeting his gaze intensely. Could he  _really_ tell what was wrong just by looking at her…? Of course he could, for what perturbed her was there for all to see, anyway.

“…The silver strands in your hair,” he reached out to run his fingers through it, the heavy silkiness too tempting not to touch. “Do you dislike them?”

She caught the way his brows lifted in sadness, in grief… in apology. As if the very signs of her years were somehow his doing. Or worse, a so-called “flaw” he ignored for the sake of enjoying her company intimately.

Stilling herself, her own brows knitted in consternation. “Do  _you?"_  she asked bluntly. Solas seemed to register the edge in her tone, his posture straightening as though on alert, but Elgara didn’t give him time to recover. “Would you prefer I use these age reversal - treatment -  _things_ more often,  _lethallin?_  Should I dip into the Inquisition’s coffers and buy the best wrinkle creams in Orlais to get one-up on my skin before it all supposedly comes crashing in over my head?”

“I did not say that,” he denied her accusation forthwith.

“Then why did you look at me with such guilt, just then…? Why the pain in your face when you touch my grays…?” 

Were she indeed twenty years younger, the flames in her breath and the smouldering coals in her eyes would have burned a hole through his precious knitwear. Were she still a young woman, she would have stood from the bath in an instant and shown him the door in all her glory, slamming it after him. She would have introduced him to a temper he’d never known, one her ex-husband could attest to, and often did in the last months of their ill-advised union. 

But even the mere thought of getting so furious now was instilling an exhaustion in her bones that she couldn’t hope to push past, only proving the irksome point. Instead, her words had been dull and lifeless, as if she fully expected this man to be disappointed with her fading looks and she hadn’t the heart to blame him for it. She closed her eyes and sunk beneath the surface, drowning her shame.

Unlike she had anticipated, he did not breach the surface to reach down and force her back above water.  _Good,_ she thought to herself.  _He respects my right to bathe without interference, at least._ That, or her complete disappearance into the milky grey water offered him ample time to think of a response. Whichever it was, at least he did not lay a hand on her. In the end, that would only make the precarious situation worse.

At last, she came up for air, her hands on the rim as she pulled herself forward. Elgara touched her tattooed cheeks and brushed the water back from her eyes and nose, moving bundles of hair out of her way as she went. She felt it all sitting on her spine, plastered to her figure, the ends swirling in the tub waters until the disturbance she’d caused slowed to a gentle current.

“ _Ir abelas, vhenan,”_ she heard him say, causing her to glance in his direction. His eyes were downcast as he spoke, and remained thus a moment longer before his gaze eventually rose to meet her own. “I’d never intended for you to doubt yourself… Also, I’ve no room to speak on the subject of age without sounding grossly hypocritical,” he assured her sadly. “Still, I understand your frustrations. To pull free one silver hair only ensures two more will grow in its place, correct?”

Her eyes smiled despite herself, catching a glimpse of his hairless dome. “Is that what you did?”

Solas returned the smirk in good humour, running a hand over his scalp. “Until there were none left, Inquisitor,” he jested.

She sighed, gathering her hair at the base of her neck and pulling it forward to wring the water out. “Perhaps I should do the same… Maybe then, you’ll stop staring at me like that…”

The droplets hit the water, trickling from her thick, salt and pepper tresses. After a moment, though, his hand came into view, resting over her own to still her movements.

“No,” her lover whispered gently. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stop.”

Elgara Lavellan sat mesmerised as Solas ran the pad of his thumb along the back of her hand, his ivory, freckled skin somewhat brilliant when set against the tanner tones of her own. It was soothing, the gentle expressions of sweet tenderness abound as he moved to tuck dark locks behind her pointed ear, earning a better view of her face. The light in his smile shone brightly as he drank the sight in, robbing her momentarily of a much-needed breath.

“Streaks of light fall through your hair like shooting stars in the twilight sky,” Solas stated in admiration, “like sun rays spilling through small cracks in a darkened room where I might lay my head to dream… If I stare, then it’s because I’m realising that, yet again and without fail, you’ve subverted my every expectation,  _vhenan_.”

Elgara frowned, curious. “…How so?”

His eyes flashed to and fro for a moment while he searched for an explanation, then came to rest on her. She saw the indecisiveness written in the turn of his lips, the uncertainty in his eyes, the twitch under his cheek as his words faltered. Perhaps, she guessed, this was something from that veiled, secret part of him, that place where she’d once said she would love to go, but he would always back away and conveniently claim not to remember the way…

She let the water flow off her back, as it were, and reached toward the wooden caddy beside her tub to claim a clip for her hair, wringing it tightly out of the way to pin it up. “Maybe you just have terrible preconceived notions about aging, Solas” she commented, surprising herself with just how flippant she sounded, “or elves in general.”

It wasn’t intended as an accusation, but there was no denying the nature of what she had spoken. She looked up to soften the blow with a shrug and a soft smile…

…And instead found her mouth enveloped by another, a warm, calloused palm cupping her jawline and fingers softly.

Initial surprise subsided and gave way to baser instincts, a gradual push and pull increasing between them. The kiss deepened seemingly of its own volition, neither elf leading the other, yet it happened all the same, drawing no complaints from either one.

“Perhaps that is it,  _vhenan,”_ he smiled against her lips in reply, taking the clip from her hair and placing it back on the caddy.

“ _Oh?_  Maybe I should take swipes at your ego more often,” she chuckled softly, smearing his cheek with the tiny gold flecks caked on her hand. “By the way, I don’t think this junk comes off.”

Solas thought for a moment while running his hand lazily over his cheek and lips, glancing down at his shining, ridiculous fingertips. “Ah,” he uttered before observing, “it’s…  _oilier_  than I first expected.” He scrunched his nose as he looked down, a sigh present in his odd smirk. “I suppose the correct thing to do now would be to ensure an even coating.”

Stunned at first, eventually Elgara grinned seconds later, stifling her laughter. “You’ll smell of dawn lotuses for a week at least.” Absently, she shifted under the water to make room at the other end. “And you’ll loathe Vivienne even more when she sends her snide compliments your way.”

Shrugging, he brought his cream knitwear and dark tunic up and over his head, tossing them in a heap toward the bed. When he turned to her again, he did so on his feet, his hands going for the ties at his waist.

The skip of her heart was unavoidable, then.

“So I will,” he accepted her warnings and promptly discarded them, his brow raised, “but it’ll be worth it, I should think…”


End file.
